Firecrackers and roaring motorbikes at the funeral of Emanuele Rubino, a criminal who died in Palermo

The funeral of Emanuele Rubino, 36, who had been sentenced in first instance to 12 years in prison for the attempted murder, in 2016, of a Gambian man whom he had shot in the head, and had undergone other sentences including one of 9 and a half years for extortion of foreign traders, were transformed into a demonstration with the throwing of firecrackers and a funeral procession with about a hundred people preceded by roaring mopeds with drivers without helmets in the pedestrian area of via Maqueda in Palermo.

At the sight of the procession many people were scared and tourists were astonished.

Rubino was under house arrest for health reasons. Family members and friends of the deceased accompanied the coffin in the hearse along the central road and in the Ballarò market up to the Carmine church.

The images of the procession were relaunched by numerous social profiles. "Palermo cannot accept - says the mayor of Palermo Roberto Lagalla - that entire streets and parts of the city become the scene of behavior that fuels the perception among citizens of not being protected and of not being able to live freely in their neighborhoods. I would like to underline that the funeral procession was promptly reported by the municipal police station present at the Quattro Canti, allowing them to intervene to prevent it from continuing in that direction. An intervention which prevented the repetition of even more serious and indecorous scenes, such as unfortunately this has already happened at other funerals in the past."